new reflux mom..need help

[Anonymous]

my son has just been diagnosed with silent reflux , I have two questions. 1) when adding cereal to the bottles does it matter if i add it after heating up or when setting up bottles and putting in fridge?? 2) They prescribed my son zantac( i guess its what my insurance will pay for ) and it seems like it made a huge difference but he hates the taste and spits half of it out. is there a way to make him take it..i asked about giving it with mylanta but my ped says they dont like giving infants any otc med..he is 15 weeks old and 14.2 pounds. Id really appreciate any help any of you can give me.

[Anonymous]

Hello and welcome,

I’ve had two reflux babies so I sure know how hard it is.

Thickening with cereal is one of those things that’s somewhat controversial. It works for some babies, does nothing for others, and acutally makes things worse for some. Rice can be very binding and can cause gassiness for small babies whose digestive systems are not fully mature. So keep that in mind and if he seems worse you may want to stop the cereal, or try oatmeal instead.

As for preparing the bottles ahead of time, for the short time that I thickened I did prepare them ahead of time and it seemed to work just fine.

As for Zantac, it is very nasty tasting and I had a hard time getting my daugher to take it. You could try this trick that I used for my son to give him his Prevacid. I would put the syringe or medicine dropper into his right cheek towards the back of the mouth (but not far enough to trigger the gag reflex), and then while squiriting the meds I’d move the syringe across the back of the tongue from his right side to the left. This would help to disperse the medicine throughout the mouth instead of pooling it in one area, so then it would be harder for him to spit it out. And the syringe being in the mouth also prevented spitting. Once I removed the syringe I’d push up firmly on his chin and that also helped keep the meds in his mouth.

As for Mylanta, MANY of us have used it for our babies. I’m not sure why your doc is opposed to it, other than the fact that it’s probably not FDA approved for infants. Very few meds are FDA approved for children under 2 though doctors can prescribe them anyway. A few moms have posted dosing suggestions from their baby’s GI’s and the consensus around here seems to be that 1-2 mls up to 4 times per day of Mylanta Cherry Supreme is safe. Too much will cause loose stools so then you’ll know to cut back.

Be sure to look at Laura’s intro link (stickied in the Introduce Yourself Forum). It has lots of valuable information which may help you.

Well I’m glad you found us and I hope we can help.

[Anonymous]

We thickened very briefly and I would put the bottle together and right before I would feed him I would add the cereal. I don’t warm Cooper’s bottles, but if I did I would have added the cereal and then warmed, but I don’t think it probably matters. We use Cherry mylanta supreme, but it gives Cooper diarrhea so we only uses it when we absolutely have to. You can have Zantac flavored and it won’t hurt its effectiveness, but it comes peppermint flavored so what ever you add to it will still have peppermint in the back ground. Cooper loved his Zantac when he was on it so I don’t have any suggestions on how to get you lo to take it. Welcome aboard and good luck.

[Anonymous]

As Christine said, the thickening helps some babies, but not others. From what I’ve seen on this board, it tends to be more helpful with spitting than with silent reflux.

For Kaelyn, it was a huge help. It significantly decreased her spitting. We thickened her bottles from 4 weeks until we stopped bottles at 15 months. We always prepared the bottles ahead of time and heated them with the cereal in them. It never caused a problem for us.

[Anonymous]

My dd HATED the zantac so much that she would cry when she smelled me carrying the syringe into the room!… Can you ask for the zantac efferdose? I’ve never tried it but apparently it tastes quite good. It’s a little pill that you dissolve in a bit of water and it tastes like citrus. Otherwise, I’ve heard of people saying that pepcid tastes good, but I do believe it’s more expensive. Good luck.

[Anonymous]

we thinckened with oatmeal instead of rice as we had constipation issues!

re the zantac — when the kids were little, we’d squirt in their mouth and then blow in their eyes. it makes them swallow. it felt cruel, but it worked. and, over time, they came to accept or even like the meds.

[Anonymous]

My daughter was diagnosed with reflux when she was less then 2 months old. I have been thickening her bottles with rice cereal ever since. It has really helped. But I did find that adding the cereal too early did not stay as thick as adding it right before I gave it to her. I found this out when she started going to daycare and I had to prepare the bottles all in the morning. Her spit up seemed to increase, and I noticed that if she had a bottle left at the end of the day that it was very liquidy and did not stay as thick. Hope it works for you!

-Lisa in Phoenix

[Anonymous]

I have a 2 and a half year old that had reflux. He would take Zantac from a nipple no problem, but spit it out if it was in a syringe. I have a 2 week old just diagnosed with reflux. I’m having problems getting him to take the Zantac too, but he is breastfed, so doesn’t really like a nipple anyway.

Jennifer

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